


Forged

by Jesse



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, and then rex SEES it, anyway like so, because we love to see a hurt person's loved one flip shit, it's just cody going toe to toe with ventress for like 5 minutes, it's not a REAL star wars fight scene if it's not in a reactor room, oh you know like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23645932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jesse/pseuds/Jesse
Summary: As a token of his affection, Rex gave Cody a knife made from beskar, knowing that he spends more time around lightsabers than anyone. He hoped that Cody would never have to use it.Today, he does.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/CT-7567 | Rex
Comments: 11
Kudos: 147





	Forged

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally just the result of me and Billie screaming about Rex and Cody for days on end now. There will probably be more of this nonsense in the future. This is just from our own little au of things and our personal story for them, so don't rag on me if it's going against anything fanon, since we don't care. Some bits of this might change later on bc Billie's making a comic version of this and I want dialogue and stuff to be accurate across both, so.

It was supposed to have been an easy mission, but when you’re stuck with General Kenobi, nothing remains easy in the slightest. Kenobi and the 212th had been tasked with ferrying recently-acquired codes to a remote outpost for another division to begin equipping them for fleet use, and there’s always just something about missions that require a high sense of urgency that just seem to bring the rats out from the gutter and send them crawling through space just to find them. It’s never a dull moment with General Kenobi around, even less so when General Skywalker is with him.

At the moment, things are rather hectic. Three Separatist ships had dropped out of hyperspace about fifteen minutes ago, unloading just about every cannon they had across their cruiser’s bow. In an attempt to cripple the enemy ships, Obi-Wan had gathered an assault team to start getting up close and personal with the ships, leaving Commander Cody and his men to stay on board the cruiser and keep the codes safe. 

It was supposed to have been an easy mission, but when the boarding ships got blasted into the hull, it became less of a fragile defense, and became fully offensive on the inside. Droids, droids, more droids. Always droids. If there’s anything Cody hates, it’s seeing his men fall to the ground at the hands of a lifeless machine. He’s already lost two men, Snapper and Marbles, and he’ll be damned if he loses another one. 

He’s in the process of pulling Snapper’s body into the adjoining hallway to keep it from being trampled by droids when the fourth boarding ship crashes through the wall, releasing yet another batch of droids that they are, quite frankly, no longer equipped to handle at the moment. He activates his comm link, head down to avoid another line of fire. “Waxer, you still with us?”

“I’m here sir, we’re about two junctions away from your position.”

“Copy that.” Cody primes his rifle for another full round before motioning for the rest of his men to fall back. “We’re going to retreat from here; this position is too compromised. Rendezvous with us near junction E-12; we can build a better blockade and cut them off from getting to the bridge from there.”

“Copy that, sir. We’ll be right there.”

A blaster bolt from one of the heavy droids ricochets off his helmet, all but snapping his head to the side. As he struggles to reorient himself, through slightly blurred eyes Cody can see a shadowy figure running down the opposite hallway, having slipped out of the most recently-crashed boarding ship. His mind races as the ship’s layout burns itself into his mental vision, tracing probable foot traffic and intent from this intruder until he quickly deduces that whoever it is, they’re after the codes, which are in a small vault near the storage bays. 

On one hand, he can’t just leave his men here; they’re already scattered thin as it is! But on the other hand.. they can’t fail their mission, either. If the codes are taken, this would all have been for nothing.

“Waxer, change of plans. Head down here to my position and reinforce the lines. You’re going to have to hold them off here and draw them back into the ship.”

“Copy that. But sir, where are you—”

“I’m following an intruder which doesn’t seem to look like a droid. You get here, support my men, and do as I’ve said.”

Cody doesn’t even wait for a confirmation from Waxer before he starts staggering to his feet. He takes a moment to reaffirm his grip on his rifle, and immediately takes off. A couple of droids lose their heads in his wake, his aim a bit more focused now that he’s in motion and having a plan. It may not be a complete plan, but if he’s learned anything from Skywalker, sometimes you just have to wing it.

He remains in hot pursuit of the intruder, sometimes managing to catch just their shadow as they run down hallways. They’re all memorized inside Cody’s head, but it’s different when he follows someone else’s way through the ship, rather than his own. All he knows is that he absolutely cannot let those codes fall into enemy hands. It would set Republic fleet communications back several weeks, which would mean countless deaths — deaths that Cody isn’t planning on letting himself be responsible for.

As he turns the next hallway, he’s faced with the reality that he’s lost sight of the intruder. Whoever they are, they’re nowhere to be seen. Doesn’t matter. He’s still going to get those codes. Even if it means keeping them on his person, they’ll be safer with him than they would be in a safe that could inevitably be blown to bits by someone else.

The cargo bay is empty of anyone else besides him. Cody quickly inputs the code to unlock the vault, and withdraws the chip from within. He quickly tucks it into a pocket before locking the safe back up, feeling relieved that the intruder had missed it completely. He locks the cargo bay doors back up, activating his comm as he prepares to head back up to where he’d left his men.

Only, he seems to have found the intruder again.

She’s standing right there at the end of the hallway. Watching his every move.

“Ventress,” he hisses, the fierce tone of his voice covering up the sheer terror he feels in his gut. A Sith. Right here in the ship. And Kenobi is outside.

“I would thank you for doing my work for me and getting the codes,” Ventress smiles, which looks entirely ugly, “But I’d just prefer to kill you and take them myself.”

Cody immediately raises his rifle in response, firing off only two shots before the weapon is suddenly removed from his grip. Ventress’ hand snaps to the side, and the rifle is flung down one of the hallways, leaving the Commander without any firepower. Ventress, however, also managed to deflect both blasts with her lightsaber, wielded in her other hand, leaving her unharmed, and the only one between them with a weapon.

“That was cute,” she says in the most bored tone of voice, “But playtime is over.”

Instinct overrides logic, and Cody immediately turns on his heel, sprinting down the other hallway away from Ventress. He can hear her following him, and he knows he has to get somewhere where he can arm himself or get help. His immediate thought is to regroup with his men, they’re not too far. But a thought merely a half second later tells him that if he leads her to his men, none of them will survive. She’s a Sith, trained under Count Dooku, and the only ones who have lived to tell the tale of a fight with her have all been Jedi. They don’t stand a chance. He can’t lead her to them. He has to lead her away from them.

Her footsteps behind him grow louder, and it takes Cody only a second to remove his helmet, turning around for another second to throw it at her. It clips her on the shoulder, slowing her down by a fraction, but it’s enough for the Commander to get the lead again. He doesn’t dare use one of the flash bombs he’s got on him; she could just use that Force magic and hurl it right back at him. Can’t have that.

His instinct soon devolves into panic, and Cody is running out of ship to speed through. He knows that if she gets any closer, she’ll have him in range to use the Force, so throwing caution to the wind, he opens the nearest door, darting inside, hoping to make his stand there. The reactor room is never an ideal place for any kind of fight, but he didn’t have any other options. 

Ventress is quick to follow him in there, now looking a lot more sure of herself as she slips a lightsaber in both of her hands, activating them in unison. The humming of the weapons blends in with the sounds from the reactor, making it even more ominous. “And here I thought I’d have to chase you right out an airlock,” she hums, taking another step closer to the Commander.

“Yeah? Feel free to toss yourself out the nearest one,” Cody spits out in response. His hand moves to the small of his back, reaching for his backup blaster, and then feeling his heart sink as he remembered that he’d handed it off to one of his men earlier. He’s still very much unarmed, and she’s got two lightsabers.

“You’re funny for a test tube,” Ventress sneers, flipping the sabers in her palms, “But the jokes stop here. Give me those codes and I’ll see to it that your death is only really painful instead of _really really_ painful.”

Mind racing, Cody takes a step backwards, heel tentatively pressing against the floor to make sure that he wasn’t going to be plummeting off the side. As he grounds himself, he can feel his beskar blade shift against his calf, still firmly tucked under his armor. The Commander’s next move is almost instantaneous, reaching down to grab the knife in his right hand and then bringing it up to his chest level. 

The Dathomirian laughs in response. “You brought a knife to a lightsaber fight? How amusing.” She then strikes at him, bringing down one of her sabers directly at Cody’s head.

The commander barely has enough time to raise the blade high enough to catch her saber before it hits him; the sound of the lightsaber grinding against the blade is almost deafening, and Ventress seems somewhat impressed. “What’s a clone like you doing with beskar?” She crones, tsk’ing at him afterwards. “Not that it matters; you’re only delaying the inevitable.”

Cody grunts under the strength of her force, barely able to wrench the beskar blade out from underneath her saber, which just barely misses cutting off half of his arm. He attempts to stab her with the blade, which brings a lunge from Ventress, and one of her lightsabers with it. The glowing red blade sears right near him, Cody just barely able to slam the edge of the blade against it. The lightsaber crackles as Ventress pushes it forward, just far enough to where the tip pierces through Cody’s left pauldron, burning a hole in his tricep. 

There’s no kind of pain that Cody has ever felt that could be compared to a lightsaber. He all but throws himself back, gasping for breath as he stumbles unevenly on the narrow bridge through the reactor room. He carefully presses his other hand over the wound for a moment before the pain has him yanking his hand away, unable to stop himself from groaning in response.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Ventress grins, flipping her lightsaber for show, “Come feel it again.” She lunges at him a second time, leaving Cody with no time at all to decide how he wanted to defend himself. He’s just barely able to slap the saber away with the beskar blade before her other lightsaber catches up, nicking a clean line on his right hip, and then before he can even process that, she’s already jabbed a massive, burning hole in his right thigh.

The commander immediately drops to one knee, unable to keep himself from doing so. His breath is already ragged, his head a mess full of white static as he tries to use the techniques he’s used so many times to take his mind off of pain, but they don’t work. This pain is in a league of its own. He can barely keep himself steady enough to remain on the thin bridge he’s kneeling on, and he almost barely even notices Ventress’ boot connecting underneath his chin, kicking him with a force so strong it sends him flying backwards, crashing into the console. The breath is forced from his lungs the moment he hits, feeling snapped circuits sparking underneath his armor as he slides down to the floor. Cody’s fingers weakly clench the handle of the blade, glancing down at it as he can hear Ventress approaching him. The 15:50 roughly scratched into the blade is hard to see with his blurred vision, and it disappears from his sight entirely as Ventress suddenly stomps her foot down on his wrist, feeling his bones snap from the sheer force of it. He can barely muster a scream as a reaction to the pain, more like a sharp croak, wondering if he might pass out before she actually kills him.

“Playtime’s over,” Ventress says flatly, grinding her heel into his shattered wrist before giving him a neat flick of her lightsaber across his chest, “Though none of you clones were ever amusing to begin with.”

Cody can feel bits of his melted armor dripping into the seared wound on his chest, and he finally realises that his pain receptors are probably just shot at this point. He’s so far into shock that he can’t even feel the pain anymore. That, or he’s in so much of it he’s forgotten how to process it. 

He’s not sure what she’s doing. He can hear her sabers humming, assuming she’s about to finish him off. His eyes are either swollen shut or he just can’t see due to sensory overload. Doesn’t matter anymore. He held her off for as long as he could. He’s just a clone. He was made to be expendable, wasn’t he?

Still, for some reason, the final blow doesn’t come. 

And then he can hear something. Voices. It sounds like.. General Kenobi. Then he just hears lightsabers clashing. And then they’re gone. 

Well.. at least he managed to keep the codes safe. Hopefully someone will be by to retrieve them from his corpse. 

He can barely hear the sound of approaching footsteps, everything now sounding like he’s hearing it from underwater. But.. that voice. He knows that voice.

“Commander? You still with us?” A pause. He can feel a hand on his cheek. He’d know Rex’s touch anywhere. “Go and get a medical team down here now!!” Rex yells a second later. 

Cody can’t even hear anyone’s retreating footsteps. 

“Cody, Cody I’m here. I’ve got you. Just hold on, please? Just hold on.” 

He can feel Rex stripping his melted armor off, and Cody manages to crack open just one eye for only a second. Everything seems both too bright and too dark for him to see properly, but the one thing he does see is Rex. Vision is still blurred, but for that brief second, he could see Rex there in front of him. It’s almost like a faint vision, one that leaves all too quickly. Cody just barely manages to groan softly in pain as Rex pulls him against his chest, holding him close. He can feel Rex’s lips pressed against his forehead, and then senses the captain turning his head to the side a little. Then he can hear the knife being picked up, not able to feel anything from his mangled fingers. Rex is quiet for a moment, and Cody knows that he’s probably aware of the fact that that knife had most definitely saved Cody’s life one way or another. He wouldn’t have still been holding onto it otherwise.

Rex’s lips are back on his forehead. And then it’s Rex’s cheek on his forehead. Rex is crying.

“Just hold on, Cody. I’ve got you.”


End file.
